Grimly Realistic Debate Drinking Games

To spice up (or, more accurately, dilute) the presidential debates, many viewers play imaginative drinking games wherein those watching are required to take a swig or a shot every time a candidate says or does something. Yet even those of us who don’t choose to participate in such frivolity often find ourselves unwittingly playing another, very pragmatic sort of debate drinking game, the impromptu rules of which we’ve designated below. Be sure to play along tonight—as if you have a choice.

Forget to pick up bottles of wine before the debate starts. At nine p.m. exactly, smell each bottle of ancient, half-drunk Sancerre in your refrigerator and drink the one that reminds you the least of roasted-garlic salad dressing.

Drink a caffeinated Diet Coke before the debate starts because your job as a political blogger requires you to live-Tweet it. After the debate, attempt to negate the stimulating effects of the Diet Coke by mixing some gin with Snapple, drinking it in one gulp, and lying very still in bed.

Using only pages torn out from a nearby magazine and no soap product, try to wipe up the Sancerre you spilled on your laptop charger.

Take a sip of wine every time your friends don’t respond to your e-mailed joke about one of the candidate’s ties.

Take a sip of wine every time your friends do respond to your e-mailed joke about one of the candidate’s ties because it’s basically like you’re drinking with a group of friends now!

See if you can balance a nearly full long-stemmed wine glass and the remote control on the rounded arm of your light-colored couch.

Time your delivery order so that when it arrives, you are on the slightly-inebriated-and-thus-peckish plateau, not the nachos-would-actually-go-great-with-tacos valley of excess.